


Don't Strain Yourself

by CobraOnTheCob



Series: Tumblr Zutara Prompts [8]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Post-Agni Kai, fic prompt from tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:09:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27726637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CobraOnTheCob/pseuds/CobraOnTheCob
Summary: Every time she closes her eyes, she dreams of nightmare scenarios where she couldn't save Zuko.So she pushes herself to not see it.
Relationships: Katara & Zuko (Avatar), Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Tumblr Zutara Prompts [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2003560
Comments: 7
Kudos: 37





	Don't Strain Yourself

**Author's Note:**

> anyways I nearly went feral over the touches.
> 
> haha this title can go both ways

She needs to sleep.

But every time she closes her eyes, she can see the fight going wrong - she doesn’t get there fast enough, her healing water isn’t enough, she’s too slow to bring the water up - it doesn’t matter.

So she throws all her energy into making sure Zuko doesn’t suffer any side effects from redirecting lightning.

She passes out after nearly twenty-five hours of being awake and chasing anything that would dare hurt Zuko, and the next thing she knows, she’s awake in Zuko’s bed and her patient is gone.

“Zuko!” she gasps, fearing the worst. Zuko slowly walks into the room with a tea tray and blinks at her inquisitively.

“Good afternoon - “

“Where’ve you been?!” Katara nearly cries, and stops. She must’ve been so exhausted that she couldn’t dream of her nightmares - which one did she see this time? She couldn’t remember - 

“Katara? Are you okay?” Zuko asks, setting the tray down. Katara flings herself off the bed.

“Get on the bed and let me check your heart,” she said. Zuko blinked at her sudden aggressive concern, but did as asked.

“I’m good,” he said as she carefully dragged her healing water over his chest, “Katara why - “

“You could’ve died,” she said, her worries spilling over, “I haven’t fully seen the effects on how badly your heart’s been affected - “

“Katara, I’m fine,” Zuko said, “I only had a little bit of lightning - “

“It was enough to leave a scar! That’s not ‘a little bit of lightning’!” Katara stressed, and stopped her ranting when she saw Zuko’s good eye widen.

“Oh,” he said, and she raised a brow.

“What?”

“I just, I thought I was fine. I sat up without nearly blacking out, and I was able to walk far enough to get some tea.” Zuko explained.

“As your healer, I can say that you shouldn’t be walking around, not in a palace where I don’t know the layout, and not when we really don’t know how much Azula’s lightning hurt you!” Katara said, bringing up the healing water again. Zuko gently grabbed her wrist to keep her from examining his heart again.

“Katara, you’ve checked,” he said softly, “I’ll be fine for today.”

“Today? But what about tomorrow? I need - “

“Katara, don’t burn yourself out,” Zuko said, “That’s why you passed out.”

“What?”

“You’ve kept yourself awake for so long that by the time I woke up the second day, I found not just myself soaked in water, but with you lying right next to me,” Zuko said, “Please, don’t push yourself for the sake of my health. Don’t disregard your own body just for the sake of mine.” Katara sat back, her cheeks growing hot. She fell asleep next to Zuko? On the job? Yugoda was a nice teacher, but Katara felt as if Yugoda could sense any medical screw-up any healer did.

“I can’t sleep again,” she said finally, “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Nightmares,” Katara admits, “I don’t save you in time, I don’t heal you enough...I don’t defeat Azula fast enough…” She’s cut off by Zuko pulling her into a hug.

“I’m here,” Zuko says, and put her hand to his heart, “Feel that? You did that. You made it strong and healthy.” Katara just rested her chin on his shoulder as her hand rested on his chest, feeling the strong pulse of his heart. Tears began to leak from her eyes.

“Thank you, Zuko,” she manages to say, “But please, don’t do anything strenuous - “

“I won’t,” he said. They sat there, holding each other and not letting go. 

“Well, if we’re like this, you can’t do anything strenuous,” Katara joked after a few minutes and Zuko chuckled.

“Maybe you should hold me to keep me from doing anything,” he said boldly. 

“You know what? I’ll take you up on that offer. No more moving until I can trust you not to strain yourself.”

“Aw, and I can’t even do a life-changing field trip to get out of this one!” Zuko says, his tone going mopey, but when Katara pulls back a little to see his face, she sees that he’s all grins. 

“Your life-changing field trip is going to be ‘following medical advice’ and that’s all it’s going to be,” Katara said, “But thank you, Zuko. For...everything.” She got up and stepped away from the bed, and as Zuko relaxed, she could hear him whisper something.

“I think I should be thanking you,” she heard as she leaned her head in closer, and Katara smiled. They’d be here all day arguing on who should thank who, so she just smiled, picked up the tea tray, and walked out of his room, feeling much lighter and more assured than before.

**Author's Note:**

> anyways when i got the prompt, I opened the doc, wrote a sentence, laid down for a nap to think about it, and then dreamed about the scenarios


End file.
